I.],
_September_ 28. 1830.
MENTAL ANARCHY.
Why need we talk of a fiery hell? If the will, which is the law of our
nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason,
no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel,
from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness--a horrid
thought!
October 5. 1830.
EAR AND TASTE FOR MUSIC DIFFERENT.----ENGLISH LITURGY.----BELGIAN
REVOLUTION.
In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
* * * * *
An ear for music is a very different thing from a taste for music. I have
no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the
intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad. Naldi, a good
fellow, remarked to me once at a concert, that I did not seem much
interested with a piece of Rossini's which had just been performed. I said,
it sounded to me like nonsense verses. But I could scarcely contain myself
when a thing of Beethoven's followed.
* * * * *
I never distinctly felt the heavenly superiority of the prayers in the
English liturgy, till I had attended some kirks in the country parts of
Scotland, I call these strings of school boys or girls which we meet near
London--walking advertisements.
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